Understandings of ‘rationalisation’ at the World Economic Conference 1927: a Systematic Overview

A Working Paper by Sabine Selchow | 2026

The World Economic Conference took place in Geneva in May 1927 under League of Nations auspices. This working paper looks at the Conference’s debate on ‘rationalisation’ and takes it as a struggle over world order. In the 1920s, rationalisation functioned as a key concept in both national and international discourses. Rationalisation captured the Zeitgeist and was promoted and appropriated by a wide range of social actors, from industrial associations and the labour movement to housewives’ organisations, from the left to the right. Its semantic range was broad. This paper maps the conceptual framings, institutional imaginaries, normative justifications, and spatial assumptions that are entailed in delegates’ notions of ‘rationalisation’. It offers a systematic empirical base for diverse research agendas.

Reference

Selchow, Sabine (2026), Understandings of ‘rationalisation’ at the World Economic Conference 1927 : a systematic overview, EUI, HEC, Working Paper, 2026/02, ECOINT - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/95456